One MET is the energy you burn sitting still. An activity rated at 8 METs costs eight times that. This table lists the MET value for every activity we could source, and converts each one into calories burned per hour at five bodyweights — so you can compare activities at a glance without running a calculation.

How to read this table

The formula behind every number in the columns on the right is the same one physiologists use:

Three things worth knowing before you use these numbers:

• MET values are averages, not readings. They were measured across groups of adults and carry the usual variation — expect your true cost to sit within roughly 15 percent of the listed value, and further off if you are very fit, very heavy, or very light.
• They include your resting metabolism. An hour at 8 METs does not represent eight hours’ worth of extra burn; roughly one MET-hour of it is the energy you would have spent lying on the sofa anyway. If you want the calories your workout added, subtract one MET from the value first.
• Effort matters more than the label. “Weight training” spans 3.5 to 6.0 METs depending on rest periods. Pick the row whose description matches how you actually train, not the one with the biggest number.

For a specific weight, duration, and activity, use the calories burned calculator, which runs this same arithmetic on your own figures.

Where these values come from

MET values are drawn from the Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference list compiled by Barbara Ainsworth and colleagues and used throughout exercise epidemiology. The Compendium assembles measured oxygen-consumption data across hundreds of activities; where a specific activity had no direct measurement, its authors assigned a value by analogy to similar work. We have kept the Compendium’s descriptions intact — including the pace and effort qualifiers — because those qualifiers are what make a value usable. Values for a handful of newer activities that post-date the published Compendium are matched to the closest measured equivalent and should be treated as approximations.

Why the same activity burns different amounts for different people

Bodyweight is the dominant variable, which is why the table has five columns rather than one. A 100 kg person running at 6 mph moves 40 kilograms more mass than a 60 kg person does, and pays roughly 67 percent more energy for the privilege — which is one reason the same run gets “easier” as you lose weight, and why a burn estimate from last year quietly overstates your intake budget today.

Fitness works the other way. A trained runner is more economical: better mechanics, less wasted motion, less energy spent on stabilising. Two people of identical weight running the same pace can differ by 5 to 10 percent on that basis alone. Terrain, temperature, altitude, and whether you are carrying anything all add further noise.

The practical upshot is that MET-based figures are excellent for comparing activities and poor for justifying food. If you are tracking calories, count exercise burn conservatively — or leave it out of your budget and let it show up on the scale.

Activity intensity categories

Public health guidance asks for 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, and the two are interchangeable at roughly two to one. The MET column is how you tell which bucket an activity falls into.

Last reviewed: September 2026.